


Powder keg; about to explode

by Face_of_Poe



Series: Seize the Moment (and stay in it) [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad D/s Etiquette, Dom/sub Undertones, Drinking, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Military Ranks, Power Dynamics, Smoking, Someone read this and help me tag it please, Undiscussed d/s dynamics, Unnegotiated d/s dynamics, bit of a dead dove: do not eat element here, sexual & non-sexual d/s dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 15:15:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12460416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Face_of_Poe/pseuds/Face_of_Poe
Summary: Department of the ArmyPamphlet 600-35Relationships Between Soldiers of Different Ranks(unclassified)1-5– Good order and discipline is imperative to the success of military organizations. It is the bedrock upon which unit cohesion is built.The leader must be counted on to use good judgment, experience, and discretion to draw the line between relationships that are “destructive” and those that are “constructive.”





	Powder keg; about to explode

**Author's Note:**

> Pay attention to tags, please.  
> I don't quite want to call this dub-con on top of the problematic tags above, but it's certainly floated about in my head so, if that's of concern, perhaps stop here.

  **I.** _Soldiers of all ranks must feel they belong to the “family.” Building the “family” requires treating one another with dignity and respect._

 

“Why the _hell_ are you in artillery?” Flipping through the kid’s file, he feels _lazy_ by contrast. “Double major in econ and poli-sci, language aptitude, fucking _Ivy League_ … how did they not funnel you straight into -?”

“Into M.I.?” Hamilton asks wryly, a resigned smile on his face that tells Washington he’s had this conversation in every new assignment, with every new commander, since he commissioned four years ago. “They wanted to. Field Artillery was the compromise.”

His eyes narrow, shrewd, as he looks the lieutenant over. As physically unremarkable as their profession dictates, all neatly-cropped dark hair and regulation clean-shaven, he’s on the shorter side, a bit narrow-framed, but… there’s something there. In the eyes.

That hunger.

“Don’t tell me,” he shakes his head in faux-regret, “you’re one of _them_.” Hamilton shrugs. “You’d have been wasted in infantry.”

“Says the infantryman.”

The lieutenant before him is verging on _too_ casual, and Washington has always enjoyed the foolproof Army hierarchy, both as a young enlisted kid all those years ago and now in the lazy backend of his captaincy. A glance at a rank badge, _yessir, no, First Sergeant, go get a haircut, Corporal –_ you know where you stand. Always. It's easy.

Life thus far has taught the man the benefits and pitfalls of first impressions, but he can’t escape the nagging voice at the back of his mind:

_Nothing_ about having Alexander Hamilton for an XO will be easy. Even in a bullshit command like this, exiled to the ass-end of the Plains. A bunch of pimple-faced kids straight out of high school who think they’re walking onto the set of _Full Metal Jacket_ or a nine week track practice in costume, and no in between; a cadre of overworked and underpaid drill sergeants who _wish_ they were on the set of _Full Metal Jacket_.

And Hamilton.

And him. “Well, I was a lot like you when I was younger.”

“Young, with dreams of glory?”

“Young and _stupid_ ,” he wants to cuff the kid over the back of the head until he tacks a _sir_ or _Captain Washington_ to the end of his sentences. “But I didn’t have a head for numbers to convince some poor clerk somewhere that if I really _had_ to be in a combat arm, it may as well be the one where you blow shit up ten miles away after calculating for wind speed and the goddamn rotation of the earth.”

“If you ever want to shell the Burger King down the road, sir, you know just who to call.”

Points for etiquette, though he somewhat undermines it with a Cheshire cat grin around a bitten lip. Never mind the smartass comment itself.

“How long am I stuck with you?”

The grin only widens. “At least six months.”

“Waiting on the promotion board?” Hamilton nods. “Hm. Well. Welcome to the hell that is BCT, Lieutenant Hamilton. New cycle starts in three days, tell you wife or girlfriend you’ll see her in nine weeks.”

“I will tell them that, yes, sir.” Washington narrows his eyes. “Kidding. I don’t have a wife.”

“Okay.”

“Or a girlfriend.”

“Hamilton?”

“Sir?”

“Go away.”

Even as he rises, there’s something conspiratorial in the young man’s sharp eyes, and if Washington wanted to deal with bored young men with too much time on their hands and a knack for mischief, he’d go back to Korea.

Yes, this one’s going to be trouble.

x---x

The night before the new cycle starts, the battery holds a Hail and Farewell at a steakhouse in town. A drill sergeant moving along, a promotion and a PCS to Kentucky, another out-processing; another coming in, newly arrived from Alaska, and Hamilton is tasked with writing up a quick introduction for her.

In retrospect, he probably ought not have let Hamilton write his own as well.

“First Lieutenant Alexander Hamilton joins us straight from triple-C,” he reads off the notecard, “where he applied himself with about as much fervor as he did college, yet still passed.” Tilghman raises a glass; Hamilton winks at him. “He’ll serve as battery X-O either until the promotion board recommends him for his captain’s bars, or decides to kick his ass to the curb, in which case,” he fixes Hamilton with a cool stare overtop the notecard, and gets a cheeky grin in turn, “you might find him frequenting one of the _real_ bars occupying the post commander’s off-limits establishments list.”

“I just go for the articles,” Hamilton swears solemnly, and Washington finally follows through on his earlier desire to cuff him around the back of the head, which just makes their small assembled gathering laugh harder.

Fortunately, they’re at that point of the night where the kids present aren’t paying any attention at all, busy with their chicken fingers and playing games on their parents’ tablets.

“In related news, Lieutenant Hamilton is single; less through lack of effort, so much as a lifetime characterized by poor time management and dubious life choices.”

Harrison whoops appreciatively, and Church calls out, “With an offer like that, sir,” and Hamilton smirks and bows and flounces back to his seat. 

If Washington had any hair, he’d be finding new gray ones by the day. He just knows it.

  

The families with small children are always the first to throw in the towel after their departing colleagues have been acknowledged and made their goodbyes. The ones who stay are usually the social life of the battery, and that’s when the drinks start flowing more regularly.

Hamilton comes and finds him at the bar when his absence has clearly extended past a typical drink retrieval, and he sidles straight onto the stool at his side and props an elbow on the counter. “Church is done regaling us with gory details of her husband’s vasectomy.”

“Kid,” he scoffs, “I was in a warzone when you were still in elementary school, I can handle hearing about John Church getting his balls snipped.” His XO coughs around a laugh, and chokes harder at the scandalized stare a young woman sends from a few seats over. “The _key_ , Mister Hamilton, to good leadership, is knowing when to take a step back and let your NCOs run the show.”

“And drinking after a night of mandatory fun is one of those times?”

“Drinking after a night of mandatory fun is, indeed, one of those times.” Cuffs him upside the head again for good measure. “ _Mandatory fun_. You’re a little shit, Lieutenant.”

“Why do you think I got exiled to Basic?”

He snorts and takes a long pull of his beer. “Who’d you piss off?”

“My triple-C section leader. Major Lee.”

“I know Lee; he’s a prick.”

Hamilton taps his bottle against Washington’s and grins. There’s a burst of raucous laughter from the corner of the restaurant cordoned off for their party, and the grin falters a bit. “Is hungover _really_ the best way to go about the first day of a new cycle?”

And Washington chuckles under his breath and drops a few bills on the bar, claps the young man on the shoulder and informs him, grave: “Hamilton, hungover is the _only_ way to go about the first day of a new cycle.”

 

Twelve hours later, Hamilton walks into his office looking lost. “I’ve gotten _three_ messages this morning from parents checking in to make sure their kids are settling in okay and have everything they need.”

Without even looking up, Washington murmurs, “Just three?”

“I… but -” He stammers, flabbergasted. “Do they think they’re going off to summer camp?”

He rolls his eyes and sits back in his chair and studies Hamilton overtop a pair of reading glasses before gesturing him impatiently into the chair opposite his desk. He sits, and Washington slides off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Hamilton, you’ve got a spotless record. You’re a smartass, but you’re _smart_ about it. So you pissed off Charles Lee, but you were _also_ top of your class, so he makes sure your last few months being a lieutenant are miserable because you’re going to make the promotion list and probably be at the top of it, and it’s the only sort of revenge he can reasonably exact.”

Hamilton blinks up at him, brows pulled in tight.

“But instead of introducing yourself to your new colleagues as a passing unfortunate who wishes he were with an artillery battalion across post, you write out this little _aw shucks_ spiel about slogging your way through triple-C like you were back in college – except you graduated in three years with two degrees _summa cum laude_ from an Ivy League school, which you just failed to mention at all.”

“Well you see, sir, I might be a smartass but I’m not an _asshole_.”

“And how many times has someone asked you – soldiers, officers, civilians – _if you’re so smart, why did you join the Army_?”

Hamilton huffs out a reluctant chuckle, shifts his gaze down, shakes his head.

“So _yes_ , Lieutenant – some of them do, in fact, think they’ve sent their kids off to summer camp. Now get back to work.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And let me know if Church makes someone cry before lunch, she’s hoping to set a new record today.”

Hamilton is still shaking his head and muttering under his breath when the door snaps closed behind him.

x---x

Here’s the thing about Alexander Hamilton: he gets the job done.

By the end of his first week on the job, he knows the names and faces of every other battery commander and their executive officers, the battalion leadership and half the battalion staff. He knows training schedules by heart each morning when he arrives and can tell Washington in an instant if asked the present status of any one of the three training platoons. He comes in early and stays late, operating at consistent levels of _non-stop_ the whole time in between, and Washington would think he must go home and collapse instantly into a dead sleep each night, except that then he’d truly have no way to account for his comprehensive command of every little detail within the battery.

The cadre love him; even Mister Reed in the HR office who likes _no one_ seems to reserve a shadow of a smile for the force of nature that is Alexander Hamilton. He’s too casual with the drill sergeants in the same way that he’s too casual with Washington himself – forever just a _bit_ shy of falling outside professional propriety and born more and more, it seems as time goes by, from simple command of his environment.

As the actual commander, this, of course, irks Washington to no end. He’d sympathize with Charles Lee, except Lee’s petty bullshit is costing the kid valuable time that he should be wow-ing the leaders at an artillery battalion and laying the groundwork for taking a command of his own in a year or two. His brain is wasted on the training side of post.

He knows the kid doesn’t want to be here, but Washington doesn’t think he grasps just _how_ wasted his skills are until the second week of the cycle, when the soldiers are learning land navigation. The two of them go out to the checkpoint, where each quartet of soldiers should find themselves once they’ve located all of their markers. The first group comes back, and they start and scramble and try to figure out where to face when they salute, and once they’ve got that sorted, Washington asks, “Which way is north?”

The one holding the map and compass points off to her left; one just goes full deer-in-headlights; the other two point straight up at the sky.

Hamilton face-palms.

x---x

During week four, they boot out three people in as many days for fraternization, by the end of which Hamilton is shouting as loud as the drill sergeants.

“ _Nine weeks! It’s nine fucking weeks! What part of keep your hands to yourself and your dick in your pants is so hard for nine goddamn weeks!_ ”

Washington tells him to take a long lunch; Hamilton obliges only in that he leaves at precisely noon and returns at precisely one, rather than getting distracted by something and slinking out at quarter after and remembering something while he eats that has him dashing back in at ten ‘til.

 

During week five, Sergeant Meade sticks his head in while Hamilton’s going over the day’s training and informs them blandly, “Private Smith’s piss test popped.”

There’s always one. “For what?”

“A bouncing baby G.I. Joe or Jo-ette, I guess."

“Well,” Washington says evenly over the sound of Hamilton’s head thunking down onto the desk, “that won’t do.”

 

During week six, he finds a number of tedious errands over at battalion on which to send his high-strung executive officer in order to keep him from any notions of heading out to the rifle ranges as the platoons start marksmanship training.

He also puts a stress ball in his top desk drawer.

x---x

During week seven, he confiscates the stress ball. Angelica Church buys Alexander a fidget spinner.

 

Washington returns the stress ball.

x---x

Washington tries to ease Hamilton into an understanding of just how terrible the _last_ couple weeks of cycle are going to be. Not because of the soldiers – by the final phase, the ones who simply aren’t going to cut it are usually gone, the ones remaining are usually – _usually_ – keen to be there, dedicated to getting through to graduation without any nonsense, to improving any scores they might struggle with.

But there are always going to be a fair handful who won’t graduate on time; who just can’t hit their rifle targets with adequate accuracy, who can’t shave that last ten seconds of their run. So they get re-cycled. Mostly to Gates’s battery, which is just a few weeks behind Washington’s, and it’s maybe a bit embarrassing for the soldiers involved, but it’s not a _punishment_.

And that’s when the families start calling and emailing.

“I understand,” he hears Alexander say with strained patience as he approaches his XO’s open office for an updated packing list for Thursday night’s FTX, “that you’ve had this vacation planned for months, but it’s really out of my hands, ma’am.”

There’s a pause while he listens, phone tucked under his ear as he leans back in his chair and commences rhythmically tossing and catching the stress ball. “Mm-hm. Yup. I – yes, ma’am, this is Lieutenant Hamilton.” Pause. “I’m the executive officer.” He frowns and stills and sits up, and catches sight of Washington hovering in the doorway. “No, ma’am, there’s no need for you to speak with Sergeant Lewis. No, she can’t override the decision.” He rolls his eyes. “No, I’m not being unreasonable.”

Washington frowns and points to the phone, raises a questioning brow. Hamilton listens to whatever tirade ensues while reaching for a scrap of paper and a pen, and he jots down _Pvt Moore._ Washington scowls, plucks the phone out from under Hamilton’s ear and says flatly, “Ma’am, this is Captain Washington. Private Moore has been very dedicated in his training, but I’m afraid we simply cannot graduate him until he has a better command of weapons handling and marksmanship and, being an _army_ , I expect you’ll understand why we hold these things to a high standard. My sincere apologies for any schedule complications this causes, and you’ll be hearing from Captain Gates’s battery with an updated timeline for your soldier in due course.”

He smacks the phone down on the receiver before she can get another word in edgewise. Hamilton stares up at him, caught somewhere between impressed and appalled, and he shrugs. “Sometimes, Lieutenant, civilians need a firmer hand than the soldiers.”

“Yeah?” Hamilton asks, visibly attempting to suppress a wry quirk of his lips. “What do junior officers need?”

“Not to push their luck,” he shoots back flatly. “Where’s the updated packing list?”

x---x

Hamilton goes out with the battery for the first part of Thursday’s overnight field training; Washington drives out at eleven for a midnight changeover and finds his XO sitting on the hood of his truck, shoulders hunched against the biting wind to keep his neck as protected as possible inside the fleece collar of his jacket.

The camp is about two hundred yards west; fairly still, this late at night. “Enjoying the view, Lieutenant?”

He huffs and slides down onto the ground. “I bummed a cigarette off of Harrison.” Leaves crunch under his heavy boots as he shivers and shuffles about in a hapless quest for warmth. “Snuck out here to smoke it.”

Washington resists the urge to smack him over the head. “Shit’ll kill you.”

“So will bullets,” Hamilton fires back without missing a beat. “But thanks, dad.” Washington fixes him with a cool stare. “Sir.”

“You’re gonna make captain only to find yourself bumped straight back down to first lieutenant by whatever sorry colonel winds up with you in their command across post.”

Hamilton fidgets and casts his eyes at the ground in a display of contrition that he’d take for sincere if he’d only known the kid for a half hour, maybe. “Sorry, sir.”

“We are going to have a long talk, you and I, once we’re on cycle break, about surviving your next command chain long enough to take a battery command yourself.” He forces a tight smile. “For tonight, however, if you’ve satisfied your cancer stick craving, you can head on home.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Hamilton straightens up abruptly, “I never had it. Private Sampson is on perimeter patrol.” He reaches into the pocket of his jacket and plucks free a small black notebook and a pencil, opens it to the marker and sticks the pencil in his teeth. “Perimeter is, eh… twenty meters that’aways,” he mumbles around the pencil as he points. “He hasn’t noticed me yet. I’m tallying each circuit.”

“Hm. And do you feel it to be apathy that is hypothetically imperiling the lives of his comrades-in-arms, or a sheer lack of understanding of his assigned duty?”

The younger man snorts. “I think it’s an affair with a lovely lady, first name Apple, middle initial I, last name Pod.”

x---x

They make it to graduation day. Hamilton acts his part and memorizes his lines for the ceremony with the same intense precision he approaches every other aspect of his job, and it runs smoothly. The soldiers are released to mingle with their families for a brief time before clearing the barracks, and Washington makes himself available for any questions or, as has proven more likely in past cycles, conversations with curious fathers who served once upon a time and are interested in the modern day U.S. Army.

_It’s the same as it ever was_ , Washington always tells them. _Minus all the ways it’s different_.

Upon extricating himself from the last of these discussions, he catches sight of his XO trying valiantly to sidestep a doe-eyed young woman who can’t be older than twenty, whose dress is brave both for its short length in chilly early March and the tenacity of the Oklahoma wind. 

“Soldiers have sisters,” Washington tells him sagely when he finally escapes, and gets a sulking glare in return.

 

The drill sergeants disappear with impressive speed once the last soldier is cleared, a tradition that’s been around longer than the eight months Washington has been in command and gets carried through reliably as NCOs come and go from the unit, always someone willing to pick up the baton and be the social organizer, the lifeblood of the battery.

As unenviable as his job is, and Hamilton’s, it’s the instructors who work the longest and most stressful hours every nine-week cycle. So they go out and unwind over lunch with spouses and significant others, and kids who are too young to be in school, and then someone (usually Church) hosts the _real_ party that weekend.

She always invites Washington; he always declines for professional propriety’s sake, and wishes them well.

(“And for fuck’s sake, Church, _call me_ if someone’s going to do something stupid like try to _drive_ afterwards, and if a single one of you gets popped at the gate for driving drunk, I will kick _all_ your asses.”)

He goes to find Hamilton to tell him to take a long lunch; instead, finds Hamilton taking a nap on the couch in his office. He shuts the door and lets him be.

The first cycle is always the roughest.

 

x---x

 

**II.** _Unit cohesion is hampered anytime relationships between the unit’s members compromise the chain of command._

They get a five week cycle break. Five weeks of half days, in at six for PT, dismissed by lunchtime, and it’s a different sort of anxiousness but the lack of structure seems to make his XO almost as jittery as the unpredictability of 120 brand new soldiers with no goddamn clue what they were doing. Which seems a good a time as any to co-opt the kid’s afternoon and try to dig a little deeper into what lies beyond his lieutenant’s bar.

They go off-post for lunch; Hamilton eyes the drink menu with a longing that suggests he wishes he’d had the foresight to change out of uniform.

Washington jabs a pickle spear in Hamilton’s direction. “You something of a control freak, L-T?”

“Uh.” His eyes dart about nervously. “I don’t think so?”

And that’s fair; he doesn’t micromanage the NCOs. Doesn’t question captain’s orders. He’s just… high-strung. “But you hate unpredictability.” Hamilton crunches a kettle chip slowly, brows furrowed. “Nothing wrong with that. The military expends a great deal of time, energy, and money in the quest to keep the world running as predictably as possible.”

The frown lingers as he works his way through a few more chips, washes them down with a soda. “Sorry, sir,” he says as he wipes his hands with a napkin, “but why are we here?”

“Because I’m hungry, eat your damn sandwich.”

“That an order?” Washington just shakes his head in resignation. “Yes,” he says, picks up his sandwich and at least gets it a few inches closer to his face, “I like predictability. Predictability is reliability and reliability is trust.”

“You have a rough deployment, Lieutenant?”

“Is there such thing as a smooth one?”

Okay, so maybe there’s some defensiveness underlying the inner smartass; a shade insecurity, he’d bet too. “You know how the drill team survives doing this job, and for longer than either you or I will?” Hamilton shakes his head. “By understanding that their job isn’t to graduate every new private who enters the battery, it’s to suss out which ones _deserve_ to graduate.” And the kid blinks at that, like it’s actually a bit of a revelation, and he’s reminded just how different his start as an enlisted man was from Hamilton’s start through ROTC. “Serving one’s country isn’t a God-given right, Hamilton. And you can trust that the ones who can’t figure that out for Basic are sure as shit the same ones who’ll find themselves sitting in their commander’s office somewhere down the line, arguing about getting chaptered out for stupid shit everyone knows not to do.”

“Fair.”

“Our success isn’t measured by the ratio of candidates we graduate, it’s measured by whether the ones we _do_ spend their careers, whether two years or twenty, serving honorably.” His lips quirk wryly, and he shrugs. “But we’ll never get to see those figures.”

x---x

The week before the new cycle starts is a battalion ball. _Mandatory fun_ , as Hamilton likes to grouse, and this one’s a much bigger pain in the ass than the Hail and Farewell event over dinner three months ago. Blues need to be dry-cleaned, ribbon racks need to be pinned and checked and straightened. Money needs to be corralled and seating charts made once they determine how many tables they’ll need.

Tilghman takes charge of the money; Church, of the seating plans. The two of them and Hamilton sprawl across Washington’s office in that lax _few-fucks-given_ manner that seems to permeate the battery as it holds its collective breath in advance of a new cycle.

“Just two tables,” Hamilton finally concludes as he consults a text. “Hanson has family coming into town and Grayson’s wife is pregnant and either ill or possibly refuses to be in the presence of so much liquor of which she cannot partake.”

Church considers and nods, understanding.

“This,” Tilghman smacks a sheet of paper down on the desk, “is the master list; money has changed hands, firstborns are promised, souls are sold.”

“For those of us with none of the above?” Hamilton deadpans.

Church plucks up the list of names and holds it in one hand to read while jotting blindly on a blank sheet of paper with the other. “Good thing you spent your last thirty-five on this most-important endeavor of – _oh_ ,” her eyes scan down the list. “ _Seventy_? Sir, are you holding out on us?”

“Always,” the young officer’s tone doesn’t much shift, and Washington peers curiously across the table despite himself, but the list just says _LT Ham. & guest_. “Friend visiting; timing happened to coincide.”

“Uh-huh.” She clicks her pen, all business. “I need to submit names for seating placards.”

Hamilton purses his lips at her expectant stare, and eventually concedes, “Marie.”

“Sexy,” she jots it down. “Does Marie have a last name, sir?”

“Lafayette.”

“Sexy and French,” she amends. “Nice.”

Hamilton smiles tightly.

x---x

It takes him entirely too long, amid the monotony of the receiving line, to realize that Hamilton is introducing him to the tall, finely-dressed man at his side, who has an impressive bunch of wild curls pulled back in a ponytail and a delighted and sharp grin.

“Wha-? Oh. _Oh_ ,” he fumbles to shake the man’s hand, and shoots a prompting stare at Hamilton’s darkly amused smile. “George Washington.”

But before Hamilton can introduce his (date?), the man clasps Washington’s hand in both of his and gushes, “Ah, oui! Our little Ham’s boss, non? Enchanté, mon cher Général.”

Hamilton face-palms. “Laf, there’s not even a general in this _room_ , this is _Captain_ Washington.” Washington gets the distinct impression that first, they’ve had this conversation _many_ times and second, that Hamilton’s (friend?) knows exactly what he’s doing and just likes riling the lieutenant up. “Sir, this is Gilbert Lafayette. College friend.”

“Good to meet you,” he releases his grip and the line moves on, Tilghman and his fiancée next while Hamilton and Lafayette move along to shake hands with the battalion commander, Colonel Dandridge.

Dinner, he’s starting to sense, is going to be highly entertaining. 

 

“Alexandre, you ornery little shit.” 

Yes, dinner is going to be entertaining.

The pair finally surface from another trip to the bar after the receiving line, the last to come find their seats, and Hamilton’s (partner?) snatches the seating placard off of the table and proceeds to tear it in two. He slides the front piece into his coat pocket and returns the mangled _Lafayette_ to perch between his water glass and the butter dish.

Hamilton just snickers behind the two glasses of wine he’s holding.

They settle in, oblivious or uncaring of the curious gazes being shot their way from the ten other occupants of the table, until Church takes one for the team, sitting on Lafayette’s other side, and says, “Alright, I gotta ask.” The cheerful young man turns a radiant smile on her, and Washington could swear she goes a bit pink in the cheeks for it. “Who’s Marie?”

Lafayette reaches over blindly to smack Hamilton in the back of the head and, yeah, Washington thinks he could like this kid. “Alas, c’est moi. Marie-Joseph Gilbert Lafayette. My parents were incurably Catholique.”

“Yikes,” Church says.

“Gilbert,” Hamilton snickers again.

“Tais-toi.” He doesn’t smack him again, but lowers his hand and squeezes once at the nape of Hamilton’s neck, thoughtless and casual, before letting go so that he can gesture elaborately with one hand and drink with the other. “I find for my American friends that _Gil_ or _Laf_ seem to be manageable, if you like.”

“Christ, Laf,” Hamilton mumbles around a mouthful of red, “don’t be so easy.”

Lafayette and Church laugh uproariously.

 

Colonel Dandridge begins opening formalities, and then they eat, and then she begins the obligatory speech about all of their hard work and recent accomplishments over coffee and dessert. As the night goes on, the table begins to skew towards the far side of tipsy and Washington, who cut himself off after two, begins to compile a mental list of who ought not be driving back home afterwards.

The early-birds begin trickling out, the parents who need to get home to babysitters. A fair few of the more sociable creatures collect their drinks and bypass the dance floor for the enclosed pavilion in the back of the venue. Lafayette is certainly a sociable creature, and Hamilton eyes the dance floor like it talked shit about his mother, so they trail along after Church and her husband, and Tilghman and his fiancée, and Harrison and a few others, out into the brisk April night.

“Okay, so like,” Randolph gestures after them, “is he - ? Are they - ?” 

Washington spreads his hands and shrugs.

 

Lafayette is charismatic.

That’s what he tells himself, at least. Lafayette is charismatic, and that’s why his gaze keeps returning to the low wall surrounding the patio where Hamilton and his friend sit, talking low and laughing, drunk and carefree, passing a cigarette back and forth once they’ve exhausted their last drinks of the night.

Lafayette is charismatic, but Hamilton is _relaxed_ , and it’s such a novelty.

Lafayette is charismatic and Hamilton is relaxed, until he’s not because Hamilton is Hamilton and Hamilton will do as Hamilton is wont to do, and inevitably he gets going on a tale that gets his blood up, and he’s gesticulating wildly and getting visibly riled, and Lafayette does that _thing_ from dinner, rests a hand at his friend’s neck and squeezes and Hamilton positively melts, the fight leaving him in a single breath.

It fascinates Washington, the intimacy of that moment; that moment and the next, as Lafayette, hand still gripped around Hamilton’s nape, holds up the cigarette and bids Hamilton lean forward and take a long drag.

He’s still exhaling the smoke when Lafayette leans down, makes do with the odd angle, and takes Hamilton’s mouth in a deep, languid kiss, which apparently answers _that_ question.

“Get some, L-T!” Harrison hollers, and Hamilton jerks and yanks away from the kiss and the hand at his neck, decidedly red in the face. Lafayette is supremely unbothered, smirks vaguely in Harrison’s direction, glances around, sees Washington watching and the smirk curls into something briefly coy before he leans down at whispers in his friend’s ear.

Hamilton looks around too quickly for Lafayette to have said anything _but_ that the kid’s boss is sitting there staring at them, so he beckons Hamilton over with a crook of his finger.

He slides off the wall, lips pressed tight, straightens his jacket and weaves around empty chairs and tables to where Washington is sitting alone a couple tables over from Church and Tilghman’s gathering. “Sir?”

He’s still flushed – the alcohol and embarrassment both, Washington would hazard. “I’m heading out in a few – you and your friend want a lift?”

“Oh.” He blinks around in surprise. “Is everyone -?”

“Harrison lives up the hill and walked, Tilghman’s fiancée hasn’t had a drop since eight and she’s driving Church and her husband.”

“Alright, then.”

x---x

Every time he closes his eyes trying to fall asleep that night, Washington thinks of Hamilton, pliant and patient, sealing his lips around the end of a cigarette held in someone _else’s_ hand.

He doesn’t even _like_ smoking.

Goddammit.

x---x

There’s no non-awkward way to say it that won’t embarrass the hell out of the kid, so Washington corners him in his office Monday morning after he’s showered and changed from PT and closes the door most of the way. Hamilton nods and mumbles a quiet greeting, already engrossed in his computer as they prepare to receive a new training class on Wednesday. “Sorry I was late,” he murmurs over the sound of clicking keys, “Had to drop Laf at the airport early.”

Which is as good a segue as any for him to tell his XO, “I apologize if I was presumptive, when we met.” Hamilton looks up, brows furrowed, still typing away, until he elaborates, “ _Wife or girlfriend_?” and his hands abruptly stop and the corners of his mouth pull down.

A dozen responses visibly flit across Hamilton’s face, before he settles on a shrug and, “No husband or boyfriend, either.”

And before he can stop himself, he asks, “You kiss all your college friends?”

Hamilton looks as surprised by the jibe as Washington, who strives to remain the consummate professional, feels. “Most of ‘em, yeah.” 

Washington snorts. “Mister Reed give you Wednesday’s roster yet?”

x---x

As cycles go, it’s a promising bunch of soldiers. Washington hasn’t yet had a group where at least two people didn’t get kicked out for fraternization, and this one proves no exception, but on the whole, it’s a well-prepared assembly.

Naturally, it is therefore the cycle that gets completely upended by spring weather in the Plains. If it’s not raining hard enough to flood half their training spaces, it’s golf-ball sized chunks of hail. If it’s not hail, it’s tornado watches. Sometimes it’s all three at once.

During a dry and windy couple weeks at the end of the cycle in June, an errant spark from artillery out on the west ranges even starts a wildfire. So, that’s fun.

Of course it’s during White Phase, when they’re away from the battery most days for field exercises and long ruck marches, that mother nature chooses to completely fuck them over, so there’s a lot of schedule shuffling and inconvenient space-sharing with Captain Steuben’s battery on those days they _can_ be away from the barracks.

Hamilton becomes intimately acquainted with the National Weather Service updates on his phone at all hours of the day, and the first high-probability severe weather day reminds Washington that he must have arrived on post late the summer prior and missed most of this shit. “Weren’t you here for BOLC, once upon a time?”

His XO continues to stare at a color-coded map like it’s some form of modern sorcery. “Wasn’t responsible for soldiers then. So,” he squints and points, “if we’re in the red…which is the _moderate_ band…and the fourth highest of five…?”

“We have a moderate chance of severe weather activity, yes,” Washington explains patiently.

Thunder crashes outside over the howling wind, and the drive to work was through sheeting rain that shows no signs of letting up. “Severer than _this_?”

“Cloud rotation, tornadoes, hail…”

“Oh,” Hamilton nods, looking up, “so we’re all going to die.” Washington snorts. “Don’t mock me, I grew up with hurricanes, not this bullshit that drops out of the sky on a moment’s notice. We tracked and prepared for our impending disasters for _days_.”

Which, if he’s being honest, only further explains the particular neuroses of this particular young officer.

“Everyone is inside, we have adequate shelter, and there will be ample warning if we need to make use of it. _Relax_ , son.”

A strained laugh bursts from Hamilton’s lips and he spins the chair a quarter turn so he can stare incredulously up at his commander. “ _Son_?” He realizes his error too late. “I called you _dad_ and you damn near threw the book at me.”

“You were being a disrespectful smartass,” Washington points out dryly.

Hamilton grins, cheeky, and asks, “And what are _you_ being, _sir_?”

Washington doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know _how_.

He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t.

He –

“Sorry,” Hamilton mumbles after a drawn-out silence, turns back to stare at his computer screen, shoulders drawn up around his red ears. “I’m sorry.”

Washington places a careful hand between Hamilton’s terse shoulders, at the nape of his neck, and presses with his fingertips ever-so-lightly.

But Hamilton is not drunk and giggly; he is _not_ Hamilton’s intimate friend, and he’s pulling his hand away just as fast as Hamilton starts and twists around and then glances down and around, anxious, pink-faced, looking embarrassed at the reaction. The question in the pulled-down corners of his mouth, if it was a chance thing or consciously done.

The latter, Washington knows, albeit impulsive and ill-contrived; but he’ll feign ignorance and Hamilton is gracious enough to go along against his better instincts. 

 

It’s not until the weather is cleared and the stresses of the day wind down, not until Washington is driving home that evening, that it occurs just how far over the line he might have crossed in that careless moment.

x---x

He checks the date the promotion list is scheduled for release that night, and prays Hamilton is near the top of it.

x---x

The shift in Hamilton’s comportment at work is subtle; it’s not that he’s particularly more proper, per his rank and station, so much as that he seems more aware of his surroundings and the moments he _should_ be.

Which isn’t a bad thing, but the first time Hamilton rises to his feet when Washington taps on the doorframe and steps into his office has Washington snapping, “The hell you doing?”

There’s a deer-in-the-headlights moment as Hamilton slinks back down into his seat. “Looking like an ass,” he grumbles after an awkward pause. “Something you need, sir?”

“Hold Reynolds’ hand in the arms room tonight, would you? You were right, he’s getting sloppy with his inventories.”

“You want me to hold his hand or breathe down his neck?”

“ _Yes._ ”

x---x

The promotion list comes out the week after the cycle ends. Hamilton plants himself outside Washington’s closed office as soon as he’s in uniform after PT, and the joke’s on him, because Washington takes his time and goes to the Shoppette down the street for good (better) coffee and some breakfast before committing to work for the morning.

“You’re not going to be in the first group,” Washington warns the impatient young man hovering over his shoulder as he pulls up the document. “First promotions are always last year’s oversights.” But he _is_ on the list and he is near the top, an effective promotion date six weeks out. “We’ll be back in cycle by then,” he glances at a calendar on the wall, “I’ll look at the training schedule and figure out a good time that week for the ceremony.”

“That’s not really necessary, sir.”

He looks up in surprise. “No one coming to take pictures while we embarrass you?” Hamilton just pulls a grimace. “Well, it’s a time-honored tradition – we get to embarrass you, and in celebration of your new rank and a pay raise, you feed us.”

“Them’s the rules?”

He must have been overseas when he made first lieutenant. “Them’s the rules.”

x---x

He should have made an exception. Let Hamilton quietly swap out his rank badges the day the promotion officially took effect and proceed as usual.

But when he realizes that Hamilton, absent a significant other of any sort, isn’t having _any_ family present at the ceremony, he asks if he’s dragging any friends along from across post, and gets a baffled stare in turn. “Anyone from your triple-C section, or…?”

And he shrugs. “Mulligan’s back in New York.” Apparently no one else merits mentioning.

And he works twelve-hour days at least, when they’re on cycle, in a unit where forming real friendships is effectively prohibited. He can’t particularly socialize with the NCOs, outside work and unit functions, and the only other officer is his commander. 

Even after today, when they’ll wear the same rank – he’ll be Hamilton’s commander. For the three weeks until he’s due to move to Colonel Knox’s artillery battalion on the other side of post.

He hasn’t told Hamilton his new orders have come through yet. A surprise for the ceremony.

So they commandeer a meeting room at battalion, and Hamilton sets up a table with coffee and a few dozen breakfast pastries from a bakery in town with all the dedication he puts into field training logistics. And then he stands there and looks faintly bored while Washington gives the obligatory rundown of his career-to-date, and decidedly _less_ bored when Washington tacks at the end of the speech, “Captain Hamilton will be leaving us at the end of the month and heading to 1-76th Field Artillery, where he’ll serve as Major Greene’s A-S3 while he waits for a battery command under Colonel Knox.”

Hamilton stares in surprise, and then blinks down when Washington reaches over to yank the velcro rank insignia off his chest.

“I usually expect dinner first, sir,” he quips drily, and Washington is keenly aware amid the laughter, as he swaps the lieutenant’s bar for the captain’s patch in his pocket, that this part is usually reserved for a spouse, a girlfriend, a parent.

Hamilton just holds his eyes while he affixes the new insignia over his heart, and Washington is pretty confident that the emotion glittering in them has little to do with the promotion itself.

“Congratulations, Captain Hamilton,” Washington says, and they shake hands, smile for the obligatory photograph. “You deserve it. Colonel Knox will be lucky to have you under his command.”

Faintly dark amusement curls his lip. “You think so?”

“Just remember,” he leans in and murmurs over his shoulder. “Captaincy’s easy, son; commanding is harder.”

“I shall endeavor to keep that in mind, _George_.”

His eyes narrow; Hamilton grins; Hanson shouts out, “Nice railroad tracks, X-O!” and the new captain flits away to wave everyone on towards the refreshments table he set up earlier that morning.

Three weeks. He can survive three weeks. 

x---x

The whole battery heads out to the field the next week for a three-day training exercise. Hamilton spends the first night out with them, helps get things organized and running smoothly so that Washington can come out the next morning with the air of a snap inspection without a host of nervous young privates tripping over one another.

He’s surprised to see Hamilton’s vehicle still at the battery when he returns mid-afternoon; is equally surprised that, after _how_ long, Hamilton’s tenacity at work can catch him off guard.

Except as he strides down emptied hallways, closer to his XO’s office, he realizes that maybe he is taking it a _bit_ easy for once, the tinny sounds of a voice from a cell on speaker or a computer competing with Hamilton’s quieter tones.

A familiar voice; distinctive French accent.

“… _go after you finish your next job?”_

“I don’t know, Laf, it’s going to be a while.”

“ _How long is a_ while _?_ ”

Hamilton laughs. “You’re so spoiled. I don’t know. Few years, probably.”

“ _That is a_ very _long time to be in… Oklahoma_.”

“Fuck you, you liked it here.”

“ _Do not mistake polite tolerance for genuine pleasure, mon ami_.”

“You’re a dick.”

“ _A dick who will travel to obscure corners of America for you, oui._ ”

Washington reaches the door and pushes it in from where it’s half-closed. Hamilton glances up from where he’s typing away at his desktop, laptop set up off to one side so he can Skype and work at the same time, surprise arching his brows. “Oh. Thought you were staying late in the field, sir.”

“ _Qui est-ce?_ ” Lafayette demands at the laptop. “ _Mon cher Général Washington?_ ”

He chuckles. “Still not a general, Mister Lafayette.”

“ _You have the comportment of a general, sir_.”

Hamilton rolls his eyes and leans over to stare directly into the camera. “Laf, you wouldn’t know a general if he walked up to you in the street.”

“ _Is it not the one with the little bird on the lapel_?”

Washington snorts in tandem with his XO and circles the desk so he can kneel down and peer at the screen. “Are you going to come back and visit this obscure corner of America?” 

“ _Ugh – if I must, sir. Our little Ham overworks himself so, non?_ ”

Washington’s mouth quirks upward and he glances over, sees Hamilton go a bit pink and duck his head. “Indeed he does; he’s not even supposed to be here right now.” 

“Okay, okay,” Hamilton announces overtop Lafayette’s displeased exclamations. “Delightful as this charming little powwow has been.” 

“ _Ah, zut._ _Tu vas m’appeler ce weekend, oui?”_

“Yeah. See ya.” He snaps the computer shut before anyone else can get a word in, and then dives straight into full work-mode. “Alpha battery is recycling two with us next week. One came down with strep and the other failed the final PT test by one -”

“Hamilton.”

He blinks up at him. “Sir?”

“Why are you here?”

“Because it’s,” he checks the time on his screen, “two forty-five, sir?”

“You cannot seriously think anyone expected you to sit here alone and do a full day’s work.”

“Why not? It’s quiet.”

“Church says you spent the night alternating between smoking at your car and chatting with whoever was up on watch.”

“Church is a dirty, rotten snitch, sir.”

At least he has the good grace not to deny it. “Go home, Hamilton.”

He goes back to typing away. “Let me just finish the transfer paperwork so I can get it back to Lieutenant Troup over at -”

“ _Alexander_.” He stills and, after a moment, drops his hands into his lap, gaze still fixed to the screen. “I’ll make it an order if I have to.”

“I don’t think you can exactly _order_ me home, sir, I’m not a soldier you can confine to the barracks.”

“Alexander,” he repeats quietly, and reaches out to rest a hand on his shoulder. A gamble; a less-than-calculated risk, but the young man just twitches once under his hold and stills again. “Go home.”

He doesn’t move his hand when Hamilton turns his head to peer up at him, eyes dark.

He watches in fascination as Hamilton swallows thickly, as he sucks in a deep breath through parted lips. 

And he inhales sharply when Hamilton acquiesces with a simple, quiet: “Yes, sir.”

 

x---x  

 

**III.** _The authority or influence one Soldier has over another is central to any discussion of the propriety of a particular relationship between Soldiers of different ranks._

When they farewell Hamilton, barely eight months after hailing him in the first place, he’s keenly aware of Hamilton’s eyes locked on his face the whole time he’s presenting him with the unit guidon.

He’s keenly aware, as the days tick down to his scheduled departure, that once Hamilton cleans out his desk and leaves the XO’s office for the last time, they will be on equal professional footing, at least until Washington makes major, absent the current constraints of a command chain.

He’s keenly aware that Hamilton’s replacement, who arrives with the unit three days early so he can learn the routine from his predecessor, is everything Hamilton is _not_. Burr is quiet and courteous and observant, and rigidly _yessir_ and _no, sir_ and the perfect picture of Army discipline. Like Hamilton, he’s an Ivy League ROTC graduate; unlike Hamilton, he has a wife and a beautiful baby girl, and his mask of professional indifference lasts only until someone asks about them, and then he’s all smiles.

He’s keenly aware, as Hamilton carries his personal computer out to his truck and waves a fond goodbye to (most of) the drill sergeants in his path, that he has no idea what he’s done.

He leaves final formation in Burr’s hands and follows Hamilton out to his truck.

Finds Hamilton perched in the open bed, cool as you please, staring thoughtfully out over the empty challenge course and blowing a puff of smoke out into the hot summer breeze, lit cigarette dangling precariously in his right hand.

“I’ve learned a lot here,” he says unprompted when Washington steps into view. “Valuable things for battalion staff, I think.”

“I don’t know Greene, but Knox is a good man. Fortunately for _you_ , I think,” Hamilton blinks up at him, curious, “he has a decent sense of humor.”

The corner of his mouth curls upwards. “That’s good.” Raises the cigarette back to his mouth and starts to inhale.

Washington thinks about Hamilton in his blues, drunk and content, Lafayette’s firm hold at his neck with one hand and raising a cigarette to his mouth with the other.

He reaches out and pinches the offending object between his thumb and forefinger, and stares, brows raised, until Hamilton relinquishes it to his grasp. “Don’t smoke,” he says, pulling it slowly from the younger captain’s mouth. “Shit’ll kill you.”

Hamilton exhales and watches as he drops it to the ground, crushes it under his boot, and then raises his gaze slowly and licks his chapped lips. “Yes, sir.”

He doesn’t know what he’s done.

Doesn’t know if Hamilton is giving him something here, or if it’s something he’s already taken – claimed? – without realizing or understanding.

Doesn’t know if it’s something he even wants.

“I haven’t finished your OER yet,” he finds himself blurting.

Hamilton blinks quickly, drags himself back into the moment with visible difficulty. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I’ll submit it by end of day Friday.” _Coward_ , he thinks, and sees the accusation echoed plainly in Hamilton’s dark eyes. “Major Greene should have it in a week or two to go over with you.”

“But, sir -”

“Wait for it.”

A huff of frustration and he deflates. Posture slumps, feet kicking out idly where they dangle over the gate.

A little boy playing dress-up soldiers.

He doesn’t know what he’s done.

x---x

It doesn’t take long for rumors of a certain substance to make their way across post, and so he knows by the middle of the following week that Hamilton landed in 1-76 with a splash; put that head for numbers to immediate use, chased down an inventory discrepancy that turned into a mystery that turned into a scandal that, by the end of the weekend, was bound to ruin a few careers across the brigade.

Washington wants to email Knox, but doesn’t know whether to send him congratulations for the accountability, or condolences for the headache.

Another week goes by, and then he sees Hamilton at the commissary one Friday evening after work, uniform already exchanged for a pair of jeans and a unit t-shirt he doesn’t recognize and doesn’t remember from the file he’d scanned all those months ago. He’s staring at the cereal, arms crossed, brow furrowed, looking for all the world like he’s contemplating one of life’s great mysteries.

Washington approaches slowly, shuffles his grocery basket from his left arm to his right, and reaches up to grab a box from the shelf. “I’m partial to this one, personally.”

“That one doesn’t taste like anything,” Hamilton scoffs without missing a beat. He has no cart, no basket. Just standing there in the cereal aisle, like the weight of the world rests on this one choice. “Fuck it,” he relents, and grabs a box of knock-off Corn Flakes off the bottom row.

“At least you opted against the _frosted_ variety.”

Hamilton tucks the box under his arm, squashes it a little, and turns to peer up at Washington. “I can’t buy Lucky Charms, I just pick out the marshmallows.” Washington smiles, doesn’t believe it for a second, and Hamilton sighs and glances around, restless. “How’s Burr settling in?”

“Eh.” He shrugs. “Fine. He’s capable. Diligent.” Pause. “He’s not you.”

“For better or worse?”

“Indeed.”

Hamilton fidgets some more, scuffs his shoes on the tile. “My OER came through.”

“Hm.”

A choice, he’s signaling here. The logical follow up, the question as to whether or not Hamilton found the evaluation to be fair, satisfactory. Or to take the announcement for how Hamilton _really_ means it – confirmation that their professional relationship is officially ended.

It was all-in-all a rather complimentary report. He doubts Hamilton has much cause for complaint. “Finish your shopping, Alexander.”

“Oh,” he quirks a half-smile, “I think I’m done.” Washington eyes the single box of cereal being crushed under his arm, dubious. “What can I say, some asshole somewhere decided I have to make a separate stop at the PX for the alcohol.”

“I usually try mine with milk.”

And he actually gets a laugh at that, crinkled eyes and scrunched up nose at odds with the usual quiet, subtle, dry humor he’s seen from the man all this time. “Enjoy your milk and cardboard, George.” 

He really hopes the kid has more than cereal and liquor in his cabinets.

 

Once Hamilton disappears from sight, Washington takes out his phone and texts him his address. 

x---x

There’s a familiar truck in his driveway and a shadowed figure on his porch. When he first pulls up, he thinks he’s going to find Hamilton smoking again, but the rustling of a bag and subsequent crunching sound make him snort with laughter.

Hamilton just eyes him challengingly, and shoves another fistful of dry cereal into his mouth.

“You pour a bottle of Jack into the bag, let it marinate a bit?”

He laughs; sends specks of half-chewed cereal flying into his lap. “Didn’t have a spoon,” he laments.

So there’s Washington, still in uniform with grocery bags in one hand and fiddling with his keys in the other, and Hamilton dressed down while he crunches on dry cereal, and this here is perhaps the moment in all of their acquaintance where he has most vividly felt the weight of the years separating them.

He opens the door, and Hamilton troops silently in after him. Trails after him through to the kitchen, stays quiet while Washington crouches down to put some things in the bottom drawer in the fridge, and when he stands and turns, he’s sitting on the counter by the sink and plucking an apple out of a bowl.

“If only,” he drawls, “there were a place you could buy your own damn produce.”

Hamilton reaches over sideways and turns on the faucet, cool-as-you-please, and rinses off the apple before taking a slow, crunching bite. “Got distracted,” he mumbles around his mouthful.

“Uh-huh.” There’s a teasing glint in Hamilton’s eyes, something just shy of a challenge. Washington isn’t willing to play that game, but he does succeed in shuttering the other man’s expression effectively all the same. “I don’t think I have ever before worked in such close proximity with someone for any length of time and come out of it knowing exactly nothing about them.”

The ensuing frown is tempered by the methodic chewing. “You’ve read my jacket.”

“Yes, I know who _Captain Hamilton_ is. I know fuck-all about _Alexander_.”

And he repeats slowly: “You’ve read my jacket.”

He wonders how he missed this.

Answers his own question just as quickly- he did everything just right.

_Be friendly, not friends; do not compromise the chain of command_.

He doesn’t know what he’s done; doesn’t know what he’s _doing_. He thinks about Hamilton, drunk and content, pliant and patient, and –

“What exactly _is_ the nature of your relationship with Mister Lafayette?”

The glint returns; harder this time. “We’re college friends.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

His brows pull in. “I don’t…” Cocks his head sideways and straightens a bit, before sliding off the counter and leaning against it instead, arms crossed over his chest. “We see each other once or twice a year, if I’m not deployed, and have casual sex, how much detail do you want?” Washington’s eyes rove over Hamilton’s face, the quick dart of his tongue wetting his lips, the bobbing of his throat betraying his nerves. “He likes to get drunk and toppy, I like to get drunk and let him.”

“Is the drunkenness a prerequisite, or…?”

Hamilton steps towards him and leans up, a twisted smirk on his mouth as he gets close by Washington’s ear and murmurs, “You know what he said to me, that night? When he saw you watching us?” He hums low, noncommittal. “He said every time I opened my mouth, you looked at me like you were trying to decide whether to gag me with my tie or your cock.”

He reaches up and curls a firm hand along Hamilton’s jaw, lets his fingers dig into the soft fuzz of hair at the back of his neck and yanks his head backwards so he can look him in the eyes again. “That,” he watches pink lips part around panting breaths, “is not my style, Alexander.”

“What _is_ , sir?”

He doesn’t know if Hamilton is giving him something here, or if it’s something he’s already taken.

“If you have to force or coerce compliance with an order, you’re not a very effective commander.” He doesn’t know what he’s doing. “Now, go wait in the living room; I need to change.”

The instinct to argue flits visibly across Hamilton’s eyes before he casts his gaze down, face still gripped in Washington’s broad hand, and murmurs, “Yes, sir.”

He doesn’t know what he’s done.

x---x

“Tell me something honest about yourself.”

There’s a pause, and then – “Something…? This is stu –”

“Alexander.”

“I’m not here to -”

“You’re here because I invited you here,” sort of, “you’re free to leave whenever you please.”

He skims a hand across the back of Hamilton’s neck and feels him shiver, sitting otherwise still on the sofa, fingers curled into the denim of his jeans at the top of his thighs while Washington hovers behind him, predatory.

Indignation makes the young man vibrate with tension – these aren’t the rules, he wants to fight and be compelled to compliance, or deign to behave and be rewarded for it.

That’s not Washington’s style. Soldiers aren’t rewarded for following orders; their _job_ is to follow orders, and his expectations are high.

“Tell me something honest.”

Hamilton’s breath hitches, and he gets out in a rush, “I almost failed ROTC.”

Honest _and_ surprising. “Why?” He knows damn well it wasn’t the coursework.

“I, uh,” his words sound thick, like he’s physically straining to produce them, “I always found excuses to get out of PT days at the pool. Couldn’t get through the water survival test my last year.”

“Bad swimmer?”

“I’m an excellent swimmer. And excellent swimmers aren’t dumb enough to jump off a high dive blindfolded.” Not unreasonable. “Throw me in with a weighted vest, make me swim across the pool with a fake rifle. Don’t expect me to jump in blind.”

“How did you pass?”

“Bummed some Xanax off a friend.” Jesus. “Didn’t get busted; lived to tell the tale.”

At least he seems to recognize his own stupidity. Washington rubs his shoulders, lets his thumbs stroke under the collar of his t-shirt until Hamilton settles a bit. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone before.”

“Tell you a _secret_ , sir?” he teases. Washington tightens his grip, digs his fingers in near the sensitive, soft flesh just above Hamilton’s collarbones, and he heeds the warning, stills and thinks.

The thrum of his heartbeat speeds up perceptibly under Washington’s hands. “I was fourteen when I woke with a conviction that I would die young; it’s never really gone away.”

He wonders how he missed this. “Did you join the Army despite that conviction, or because of it.”

“I don’t…” Hamilton draws a shuddering breath. “Neither. It just seemed… like the right thing to do.”

He doesn’t elaborate, and Washington doesn’t push.

“Tell me something that’s _real_.”

A longer silence this time, but without the protests. Slow breaths. Careful and contemplative. “My mother’s face.”

“Where is she?”

Hamilton just reaches up and taps at his own temple.

“Now look at me.”

He puts his hand back down in his lap and rests his neck on the back of the sofa, stares at Washington upside-down and blinks slowly, heavily.

Washington thinks about the amiable smartass of an XO, a bit of a posture overtop his insecurities.

_Predictability is reliability and reliability is trust_.

He thinks about Hamilton drunk and content, pliant and patient.

He splays a hand at the base of his throat, a heavy touch but with no real pressure; Hamilton just blinks again, calm, slow.

“There you are.”

The shadow of a smile touches the young man’s lips.

“Stand up.” He rises, a bit unsteady, and Washington circles the couch and curls a hand around the back of his skull, lets him lean into the touch. “Bedroom’s on the right,” he glances over Hamilton’s shoulder, nods at the short hallway. “Strip as far as you’re comfortable and go lie down.”

Hamilton’s eyes shift as he slowly processes those instructions, and Washington can see the conflict in them before he ever attempts to voice them through his hazy fog. “I don’t know if –”

He leans down to murmur low against his ear, “I’m not going to fuck you, Alexander. Go lie down.”

While he waits, gives Hamilton a few minutes to settle or change his mind altogether, he finishes putting away the groceries still sitting on the kitchen counter. Gives it another minute, drinks a glass of water – feels briefly like a bad host when he remembers he never offered Hamilton anything, until he recalls the pilfered apple, and then just snorts softly under his breath.

Half-expecting to find Hamilton naked and sprawled seductively across the bed with familiar challenge in his eyes, the image that greets him instead makes something twist in his stomach. He’s shucked his jeans and t-shirt, sits cross-legged in the middle of the bed in a pair of black boxer-briefs and peers hesitantly towards the door.

_Christ_ , he looks so young. Vulnerable, and young.

“I told you to lie down.”

There’s a moment’s pause while the words slowly register, and then he starts and glances towards the head of the bed. “Oh.” Bites his lip. “How do you - ?”

“However you want.”

So he twists around and sprawls on his stomach, and there’s a grace in the wiry muscle of his thin frame that’s not obvious under the oversized shirts they all wear to PT. Hands pillowed under his head, face turned to the side, there’s a tinge of pink rising in his cheek, seeping down his neck.

Washington crosses over to sit on the bed, rests a heavy hand at the small of Hamilton’s back and seizes on the moment of self-consciousness. “Tell me about your friend. Getting drunk and _toppy_ , as you say.”

He has to fight back a chuckle at the flush deepens, fights back the urge to roll Hamilton over to see how far down his chest it spreads. “Laf’s just… you’ve met him, he’s demanding and spoiled and bossy.”

“I found him quite charismatic and charming.”

“Sure,” Hamilton twists his neck so he can look up at him. “One glance at you and he was smitten; at the first sign of any interest he’d have been on his knees.”

“That’s very flattering.”

Hamilton snorts. “He got under your skin, huh?”

He moves his hand to Hamilton’s hip, grips tightly, and braces the other on his opposite shoulder, leans over to whisper hot against his ear, “ _No_ , Alexander – _you_ did. So happy and unguarded in his presence. So… _compliant_ to his touch.” Digs his fingers in deeper, feels Hamilton shudder beneath him. “So different, from my high-strung X-O.”

Hamilton’s breath is coming deeper now, and he tries to shift his face, twist out of sight, but Washington moves his hand from his shoulder and threads it through his short dark hair, holds him still and unable to hide. “How does Lafayette get under _your_ skin?” he asks softly, and Hamilton’s breath catches. “Does he hold you down like this? No,” answers his own question just as fast, “he’s demanding and spoiled, he doesn’t want to fight you, he wants you to behave. Does he tie you up, Alexander? Content himself with the illusion that you’re being good so he can be free to touch you and touch himself and -”

“ _Yes_ ,” Hamilton gasps. “Yes, sometimes we… yes.”

“Gag you?” He whimpers and nods, eyes pressed closed. “Does he hurt you?”

Another gasp, well on its way to a sob, escapes his throat. “When I ask him to.”

“I don’t need to do any of that though, do I?” He pulls back, returns his hand to the small of Hamilton’s flushed back and rubs soothing circles. “It’s not my style – and you know better, don’t you? You’re not the same smart-assed little lieutenant who walked in my office in January. You know better – you can be _good_ now, can’t you?”

He nods as best he can, with his cheek pressed down into the mattress.

“Good.” Takes him by the other hip and applies some light pressure. “Now roll over.”

He does, starts to lower his arms. Washington takes him by the wrists and pulls them up over his head, but Hamilton’s too far down in the middle of the bed. “Scoot up a bit,” he taps his flank, pointedly ignores the bulge in his underwear, the damp spot forming on them. “Good. Keep your fingertips touching the headboard.” He watches the movement of Hamilton’s throat as he swallows and nods. “Don’t talk unless to answer a question.”

Hamilton already looks well on his way beyond speech as it is.

Washington starts at his palms, runs light fingertips across calloused flesh; strokes down his arms so lightly that goosebumps rise in the wake of his touch. Curls his hands down through Hamilton’s dark hair and cups his face, runs his thumbs over sharp cheekbones. Curious. Exploring. Down his chest and back up the sides, counting each rib and running gentle fingers through the spaces between.

Muscles spasm as he presses into the lines of Hamilton’s abdomen, and he quirks a brow. “Ticklish?”

“If I say no, will you -?”

He cuts off with a strangled groan when Washington presses his thumbs into both nipples. “It’s not a negotiation.” Pinches them lightly, and then has to tsk when he arches off the bed and remind him, “Headboard, Alexander – be good.”

So he lies there and bears it while Washington explores up and down his body, his legs and feet (which are most definitely ticklish), skipping entirely over the still-clad part of him until Hamilton is vibrating with frustrated need and sucking in short, panting breaths through parted lips.

“Do you want me to touch you, Alexander?” Gets a frantic nod in response, and he squeezes at his hip and gets a gasped, “Yeah. Yes. Please.”

He places his palm on top of the dark fabric covering his erection and presses down ever so lightly. Hamilton whimpers, but keeps otherwise silent while Washington continues his casual stroking with one hand and provides intermittent pressure over the young man’s cock with the other.

He keeps it up, enjoys the low, wrecked sounds being dragged out of Hamilton until the first tears begin to glisten in his dark eyes. “Look at you,” he wonders softly, barely audible over the ragged breaths. “So desperate, and yet so desperate to be _good_. Do you want more, Alexander?”

“Yes,” he sobs, and Washington reaches up to cup his cheek again, thumb away the first hot tear to slip down his lashes. “Please, yes.”

He slips his fingers under the waistband of his briefs and gets his hand around him, swipes his thumb through the liquid pooling at the head and strokes him lightly. Not enough to satisfy. “Tell me a first, Alexander.”

“ _What_?” he cries, incredulous, and Washington stills his hand, watches Alexander tip his head backwards in frustration, eyes pressed closed.

“Look at me,” he commands, and uses his other hand to work Hamilton’s cock free. “A first, a first anything. Tell me, or I’ll stop.”

“I -” He’s wild-eyed and desperate, visibly struggling not to buck up into the hand wrapped loosely around him. “I can’t even – _fuck_.” Washington just smirks, waits him out until he gasps, “My first kiss.”

“Good,” he strokes more firmly, still slow, measured. “Go on.”

“We were playing on the beach.” _What beach_ , Washington wants to ask, but it’s too specific, Hamilton doesn’t do pointed questions, needs flexibility to craft his own narrative. “Me and my best friend. I think we were eleven. Wondered what it’d be like.”

“What was it like?”

“Um. Chapped and dry and weird.”

There’s a charming innocence to the snapshot tale that’s horribly incongruous with the scene in which it’s being told. He speeds up his strokes and moves on. “Tell me a favorite.”

He closes his eyes again, and then snaps them back open almost as quickly. _Good_. “Uhh… late at night. Early in the morning. It’s…” he swallows and whimpers and fights for focus. “My favorite time of the day. When the rest of the world is sleeping.”

“What do you do?”

“Read… write,” he goes quiet and looks briefly embarrassed, like he’s said too much. “Eat chips and salsa and binge-watch Netflix, it doesn’t matter.”

Washington rests his free hand lightly against the heated skin of his belly, rubs lazily across a prominent hipbone with his thumb.

“Tell me a last.”

The answer comes more quickly. “My last cigarette was the day I left your battery. The one,” he elaborates breathlessly, “you took away.”

“Why’d you stop?”

He stops squirming, just sucks in deep breaths while he struggles to keep his eyes open and fixed on Washington as he says, “Because you told me to, sir.”

“Good boy,” Washington breathes, and Hamilton finally shatters apart.

x---x

He washes his hands, wipes up what spilled over his fingers and dripped onto Hamilton’s stomach. Unfolds a blanket from the foot of the bed, rather than make Hamilton, who’s looking well on his way to sleep and barely coherent, wriggle under the comforter. It’s painfully paternal, draping the cover over Hamilton while he blinks blearily up at him. “Do you need anything?”

Hamilton just shakes his head and rolls to his side, facing away, getting comfortable or hiding in embarrassment. He doesn’t shy away though when Washington sits on the bed by his side and rubs his back, cards fingers through his hair and scratches lightly at his scalp, so he stays and does just that until the younger man’s breathing deepens and evens out.

And then he goes back to the living room, collapses on the sofa, and releases a breath he feels like he’s been holding for months.

x---x

It takes about ninety minutes for Hamilton to surface. He comes shuffling out to the living room wrapped in the blanket, still bleary-eyed and groggy, and there’s something distinctly feline in the way he wriggles under Washington’s arm and presses into his side, and promptly falls back asleep.

x---x

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Washington confesses softly when he feels Hamilton start to stir again twenty minutes later.

“This’s’gud,” Hamilton speaks muffled against his shirt.

“You’re drooling on me,” Washington observes.

“I left my Corn Flakes on the porch,” Hamilton laments.

x---x

They eat cereal for dinner, because of course they do. 

x---x

Hamilton gets dressed. Comes back out and fidgets a bit awkwardly with the sleeves of his hoodie until he summons the courage required to lean up and place a soft kiss at the corner of Washington’s mouth. “I, uh… this was good. Nice. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” _Christ_. “I’m not kicking you out. If you wanted to -”

“I would,” Hamilton says, regretful; Washington would take him for sincere if he’d only known the kid a half hour, maybe. “I’ll be up all night after that nap though, so.”

“Okay. Have a good night then, Alexander – enjoy your Corn Flakes.”

He grins. “Thanks, George. Enjoy your cardboard.” 

It’s not five minutes after the door clicks closed behind him and Washington hears the truck pull out of the driveway that it occurs to him what was wrong with that final scene, that Hamilton had walked _into_ his house in a t-shirt, and he pulls out his phone and sends a text. 

_To: XO Hamilton_

_Did you steal my battery sweatshirt?_

While he waits, he changes the contact from _XO Hamilton_ to _CPT Hamilton_.  

The response comes a few minutes later. 

_From: CPT Hamilton_

_I really thought you’d notice it was 2 sizes too big._

He snorts. 

_To: CPT Hamilton_

_You’re an ornery little shit._

 

They don’t talk about it; he doesn’t know if Hamilton gave him something tonight, or if it’s something he took, claimed, without really realizing or understanding.

He doesn’t know what he’s done. 

x---x

He sees Hamilton one last time while they’re both stationed in Oklahoma.

Church gets her orders to move along, gets her first choice post up at Fort Drum in New York, nearer her family than she’s been in years. She hosts a last get together before they have to start packing up the house, a decidedly more laid-back affair than the post-cycle shindigs, and Washington makes an exception to his usual rule and drops in.

“I’m keeping track for you, sir,” Church gives him a half-hug and then passes him a beer. “Already confiscated three sets of keys.”

“You’re a credit to your profession, Angelica.”

“Burr and Hamilton already offered to drive anyone.”

He blinks around. “Hamilton’s here?”

She points over his shoulder. “Very enamored with his new girlfriend.”

He cocks a brow at that, and looks and laughs to see Hamilton sitting at the kitchen table with a pouty Theodosia Burr in his lap. As Washington walks over, he sees Hamilton sigh and hand the baby his keyring, which she begins promptly mashing in her tiny fists while she giggles.

By the time he slides out a chair and takes a seat, Tilghman’s walking over with a frown. “Uh, sir, your car alarm is going off.”

“Yup,” Hamilton sighs again.

Burr liberates Hamilton a moment later, pries the keys out of his daughter’s hands and carries her off, shrieking.

They observe one another quietly for a drawn-out moment, and then Hamilton murmurs while glancing around at the lively crowd to ensure everyone’s out of earshot, “Laf wants to have a threesome.” Washington huffs out a snort of laughter. “Told him it wasn’t your style.”

By an unspoken agreement, they migrate outside, find a quiet corner of the deck and lean against the railing side-by-side, Washington with his beer and Hamilton with a can of soda. “How’s 1-76 treating you?”

“Busy; we’re leaving on Monday for a month at NTC.”

“Staff rotation, or…?”

Hamilton shakes his head. “Nah, the whole battalion. Guess we’re spending most of next year in Korea. I was thinking of having the soldiers watch M*A*S*H to prepare.”

“You’re going to go far in the Army, Alexander,” Washington deadpans.

He chuckles, and then gets quiet and pensive for a minute before mumbling, “I, ah… I have your sweater in my truck. If you -”

“Why don’t you keep it.”

Pink tinges his cheeks at that, but he looks up and cocks a half-smile. “Okay.”

There’s a comfortable silence, save the muffled laughter and music from inside the house, and it would feel like the end of the conversation already, but Washington feels obliged to tell him, “I’ll be gone by the time you’re back.”

“Figured you must be nearing the end of your command,” Hamilton murmurs, unsurprised. “Where to?”

“Year or two of ROTC instruction. Back closer to home.”

“Where’s…?” Hamilton blinks up in surprise, apparently taken aback that he has to ask after all this time, after everything. “Where’s home?”

“Northern Virginia.” Decides to take a chance, and reciprocates the question, “You?”

Hamilton chuckles, a bit derisively, and looks down and fidgets with the can in his hand. “I hate that question,” he admits, but then elaborates before Washington can walk it back, “I grew up in the Virgin Islands. Saint Croix. But there’s nothing… I’ll never go back.”

“Family?”

“Nope,” he says flatly, and then preempts any attempts to clarify that response or offer trite condolences. “It is what it is.”

He wonders how he missed this.

And again, he answers his own question - because he did everything just right.

Except in all the ways he didn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> Much like Washington, I have no idea what I've done, this was not the story I thought I started writing.  
> Uh, hopefully it was nevertheless enjoyable?


End file.
